It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alianza Lima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
296% of the income goes out in wages at Alianza Lima
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Luis Advíncula was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Alianza Lima the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alianza Lima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Federico Girotti trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Alianza Lima that is a harder question to answer.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alianza Lima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Luis Ramos trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Guillermo Viscarra was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The captaincy has been taken off Federico Girotti. Alianza Lima will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
Jean Pierre Archimbaud was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The name of Jefferson Churi has come up in conversations Alianza Lima were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Gianfranco Chávez plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
In brief
SquadLuis Advíncula is training like a man with a point to make
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alianza Lima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Luis Advíncula was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Alianza Lima that is a harder question to answer.
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Federico Girotti and Alianza Lima agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Luis Advíncula was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alianza Lima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Still no offer on the table, and Guillermo Viscarra’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Alianza Lima, and both men came out saying it was fine.